Santa Cruz County voters will vote on marijuana sales tax in November

Santa Cruz County voters will be asked this November 4 to decide on whether to tax medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved placing on the November ballot a 7 percent general sales tax on medical marijuana dispensaries.

Medical marijuana operators said a tax on their gross sales would deeply impact their bottom lines and limit access for sick patients.

Khalil Moutawakkil, owner of The Kind Peoples Collective, said, "We were hoping we could get the tax percentage reduced from seven percent to a lower percent. Obviously that didn't happen today, which is very disappointing to Santa Cruz patients."

A 7 percent tax on medical marijuana dispensaries would raise an estimated $900,000 for the county. That money could go toward mitigating negative environmental impacts caused by irresponsible growers.

Colin Disheroon, CEO of Santa Cruz Mountain Naturals, said the sales tax would, "Potentially produce a lot of problems for our patients to access the medicine. People might go back to the black market to try and acquire medicine."

Resident Helen Garvey told supervisors that her husband uses medical marijuana to help control his Parkinson's disease.

"I'm just outraged to hear that you're taxing medicine. The number of people helped by this is incredible," Garvey said.

Supervisor Neal Coonerty said major pharmacies already pay taxes and he doesn't believe a tax on marijuana dispensaries would be outrageous.

Supervisor John Leopold sought to have the tax lowered to a more reasonable 5 percent.

"Taxes rarely go down. the request to voters is to go up to 10 percent. It seems to me (we should) start at a lower amount, see what it brings in, and figure out if you have to bring it up at another time," Leopold said.

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